A well-designed grounding system serves two primary functions:

1. Personnel Safety: It provides a low-resistance path for fault currents to safely dissipate into the earth, preventing dangerous electric shocks.

2. Equipment Protection: It stabilizes voltage, dissipates lightning strikes and other surges, and prevents costly damage to sensitive electrical equipment.

By providing a reliable path for excess current, a good grounding system ensures that protective devices, such as circuit breakers, can operate correctly and quickly to clear a fault.